All She Needed
by Harmonious Melody
Summary: A story of true friendship among the greatest tragedy. Warning: Character Death


I don't own Harry Potter. It all belongs to J.K. Rowling.

It wasn't cold. It wasn't rainy, not like every other sob story. In fact, it was the first nice day of the year, but it was also the last. It was unthinkable, but not as shocking as it should have been because it always happens like this. A bright, beautiful girl, so smart and with such a promising future ahead of her. But it all ends with two words: brain cancer. Unthinkable because nothing should be able to touch her, nothing ever has. But it is always the same story. On top of the world one minute and it's all just a memory the next because of two words from a man in a pristine white coat that somehow means answers, good or otherwise.

She had everything that she could want. A safe life that she had helped secure. Two best friends who loved her: one who she was going to spend the rest of her life with and the other who was the hero of their world. They had fought for so long and finally won. And now… her new enemy was the one she couldn't beat. It was the one thing that magic couldn't fix. And because of it, everything else began to break too.

Because of her fame, everyone knew once she did. She immediately went from the respected junior assistant to the new minister of education Hermione Granger to the poor sick girl with cancer. She was pitied by everyone around her. Her bosses dismissed her from work saying that she needed time to focus on getting better, even though everyone knew it was impossible. Old school friends would owl her, but never saw her anymore, saying that they didn't want to bother her. Her family was still recovering from the memory charm she had performed to protect them and were still in St. Mungo's. The only people she had anymore were Harry and Ron.

Ron was still in shock, even weeks later. He would just wander around their house, never looking her in the eyes. Harry, on the other hand, always stared into her eyes with his bright emerald ones when he spoke to her. It was always with such sadness that it made her heart break every time. He worked tirelessly, looking for something that could save her. She knew he blamed himself, as he always did, as though allowing her to help him through the years is what made her sick. They both knew it wasn't true, but he needed someone to blame.

It wasn't very long before he could take the blame off of himself. Ron left. His wanderings kept taking him farther and farther from his and Hermione's bedroom where she was put on bed rest, the only thing that the mediwizards thought may help, as though inaction would somehow slow down the damage. He eventually stopped sleeping in their bed, stopped holding her when she cried and just disappeared one day, leaving behind only a note that said _I'm sorry_. That day, Harry moved in to take care of her, but not before tracking Ron down and leaving him bloody in an alley.

Harry became her everything. They never were romantic and neither wanted to be, but he was all she had. He never got angry or frustrated when she couldn't remember things about their days at Hogwarts. He never got impatient when it took her two minutes to say a sentence. He would just sit and wait and help her. He carried her wherever she wanted to go when she couldn't walk anymore. But even when she could barely see as her eyesight left her, she could see the love and care he had for her as he helped her eat and get cleaned up and she could see that he would never leave her. In the same way, even through her one word answers, he could hear the love and the gratitude she had for him when they would sit and talk before she went to sleep and he could feel the trust in her weak grip as she put her arms around his neck and he carried her to bed.

Hermione lived three months longer than she had been told she would. Even though the mediwizards wanted her in the hospital, she fought them until they conceded to let her stay in her home. She died with only Harry by her side, but it was all she needed. The night she died, she clutched is hand and made him stay by her side when he put her to bed, as though she knew it was the end. He felt her slip away as her hand slipped from his. The next day, her 21st birthday, the ministry held a memorial service for her. It was as though the entire wizarding world came to honor the woman who spent all of her life working to help people. Everyone that she had touched spoke of how she had changed their lives, whether she meant to or not. Everyone who had cared about her spoke, except for one. Harry did not speak. He did not even attend the service. Not out of spite or anger, but out of honor for her. He honored the Hermione with bushy hair and buck teeth that grew into the woman that everyone knew. Her mourned for the Hermione that worried about grades over death, but still was vulnerable enough to cry after being hurt by a boy. It was the Hermione that only he had seen and loved until the day she died. Not the heroine of the wizarding world. Not the next Minister of Magic that everyone else was mourning. Just Hermione Jean Granger, the woman who saw him for himself: Harry James Potter. They saw each other as simply themselves and even in death, it was all they needed.


End file.
